A Whole New World
by Omnicat
Summary: Pai having her own body again means experiencing her own hormones again too. It's awesome. / set in the same post-canon fix-it AU as 'Living the Dream', though you don't have read that to understand this


**Title:** A Whole New World

 **Author:** Omnicat

 **Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge:** Tensai Okamura & co's _Darker than Black: the Black Contractor_ anime.

 **Warnings:** Things you do not want to know about your siblings.

 **Characters & Relationships:** Hei & Pai,

 **Summary:** Pai having her own body again means experiencing her own hormones again too. It's _awesome_. **/ 1324 words**

 **Author's Note:** Enjoy!

 **II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II**

 **A Whole New World**

"What do you keep looking at?" Hei mumbled from the corner of his mouth. He'd been trying to put his finger on it all through his fifth and sixth bento. She was searching for _something_ in the steady trickle of people passing them by in the park; sometimes she seemed to contemplate whether a particular person or group of people qualified, and sometimes it seemed to catch her by surprise. He just couldn't figure out what 'it' was.

"People," was Pai all said, as though it should be obvious. It was a little muffled by her mouthful of pocky, but she made no actual attempt at keeping her voice down. Curious, because she obviously _was_ trying to be subtle about her staring.

"Why?"

"Personal gratification."

Keeping half an eye on her as he tried to find some hidden pattern in the passers-by himself, Hei waited for her to elaborate. But Pai ate her chocolate, kept tracking the people around them behind their backs, and said nothing.

"Okay," he said eventually.

She'd either tell him when she felt like it, or not at all. If there was anything to tell in the first place. When push came to shove, there might not be.

He used to do it a lot himself, before Pai came back. He'd had a cover as an exchange student to keep up but no actual classes to attend, which meant a lot of free time he wasn't supposed to spend at Umitsuki Apartments. Taking freelance jobs on the side solely for the money hadn't been a risk he'd cared to take, devoting any more time to being a waiter or janitor than he had to not his idea of a day well-spent, and hobbies... eh.

(Maybe he'd kept his private life as dull and empty as possible in an attempt to stay as numb as he felt a 'Contractor' like him ought to be and not provoke genuine emotion in himself. Maybe his refusal to enjoy himself had been another symptom of trauma and depression. Or maybe his Contractor sister was the last person he wanted to be lectured by about his mental health, how about that? No, I don't care how boring it was in my subconscious –)

So Hei had filled his days 'off' either digging up information on what had happened in South America, keeping his physical skills sharp, or watching people who didn't have to watch people to figure out how to be people.

Not to the extent _he_ did after all the formative years he'd spent either in a laboratory or out on the front lines of that last South American war, at least. Or to the extent Pai did, after turning into a Contractor as a preteen and barely having access to the world of the living at all for five years.

He was glad she found it enjoyable, at least. He'd hate to think she was only –

"That woman, for example..." Pai said unexpectedly, and pointed a half-eaten stick of pocky at a curvy thirty-something businesswoman in a pencil skirt. "...has a _very_ nice butt."

Hei's brain screeched to a halt.

"What?"

Without having to look, she flicked his ear. "You're not deaf, I'm not going to repeat myself."

Hei opened and closed his mouth, but no sound came out.

"That boy over there too. The one in the checkered overshirt. He always sits a couple of rows in front of me in the lecture hall."

The hinges of Hei's jaw gave out.

Smiling innocently, Pai turned to him and pushed his jaw back in place. His teeth met with a _clack_. "I think it's time to get back to class, don't you agree, brother?"

"Yes," he said automatically. It was.

"Okay. See you in a couple of hours."

She stood, shouldered her bag, and walked away, throwing her empty box of pocky in a trash can as she passed. Hei quickly gathered up his own things and hurried after her.

Pai shot him a bland smile over her shoulder and drawled, "Your building is the other way."

It was not the most productive afternoon he'd had so far in his fledgling academic career.

He was waiting for Pai outside of her classroom at the end of the day, cell phone unopened in his hand and slouching halfheartedly against the far wall. It was no wonder she started laughing the moment she spotted him; he was doing a terrible job of trying to look casual. She said something to the group of girls surrounding her, waved them goodbye, and jogged up to Hei. Snickering amongst themselves, the girls disappeared in the opposite direction.

"It's really bothering you, isn't it?" Pai said in greeting, eyes twinkling with mischief. An awfully transparent use of emotion. Hei hated that it worked anyway.

"No it's not," he said.

"Uh-huh." She linked their arms and steered him down the hallway. "So is it 'the little sister who drifted in and out of my head for five years might be a sexual being' trauma or a protective big brother thing?"

"I'm not _bothered_ ," he insisted. "Just surprised."

(He was only resisting getting riled up about both of those things because she _wanted_ him to, but no way was he going to admit that.)

"When did this happen?" he demanded.

"Gradually."

He rolled his eyes. "That's your answer to everything."

"Because it's true."

"Fine. What does it _mean?_ "

"I don't know yet."

He studied her profile as they made their way off university grounds. That would make sense. Contractors were obviously under no biological or supernatural obligation to be loveless, sexless creatures if they didn't want to be, but any manifestation of emotion or appreciation of the physical was like a flower poking through a blanket of snow. Unexpected at best, and for those who hadn't had much experience with it before their turning, easily puzzling.

"Would it make you feel better if I told you butts and breasts and all that held no appeal to me at any point during the time we were merged?" she asked.

Rhetorical question. They both knew it would.

So instead Hei shot back: "Would that be the truth?"

"Yes," Pai answered, looking him in the eye with a frank and steady gaze.

If she was lying to spare his feelings, he would never know. And he was fully prepared to think she was, after the way she and Amber had left him for five years.

But he chose to believe her. He was finally _able_ to believe her again after so long, and that meant more than a few ideological breaking points.

"Okay," he said. "Then it does, yes." He forged on, determined to prove it true to both of them. "So you were looking at boys _and_ girls?"

Her mouth pursed dubiously. "Are you sure you want to know?"

" _Yes._ " He reached over and squeezed her arm. "You're my sister. I want to know you. Your likes and dislikes, your interests..."

The smile she gave him then was small and soft and beyond doubt. "Then I'll tell you as soon as I make up my mind about it."

Pai waited until they were in the middle of dinner to say slyly: "I might have been having an easier time figuring out my attractions now if your thoughts hadn't kept reminding me of how nice Amber's butt was every time I tuned in for the last five years."

Hei choked on a mouthful of fried rice.

"Because obviously it _was_ – she was an objectively attractive woman, and who knows, still might be, somewhere out there – but I don't remember being as wildly attracted to the notion before _your_ –"

"I'm interested, but not in discussing _those_ details," Hei coughed before she could finish that sentence.

"I know," Pai said fondly. "But you know what else I didn't see before I sat in on so many of your memories of Amber? How fun it is to tease you."


End file.
